My Favorite Star Trek Book quote when I want to give up.

HowieTwoPointZero

Krenn said, “If you wish, I will take that message. But there is something I ought to tell you. We have a word, komerex: your translator has probably told you it means ‘Empire,’ but what it means truly is ‘the structure that grows.’ It has an opposite, khesterex: ‘the structure that dies.’ We are taught—by those you wish to receive your story—that there are no other cultures than these. And in my years as a Captain, I have seen nothing to indicate that my teaching was wrong. There are only Empires … and kuve.” Krenn saw Grandisson’s long jaw go slack; he knew how the Human’s machine had translated the last word. “And this is the change you say you wish to make in yourselves…

-John M Ford
-The Final Reflection
(My Second Favorite Trek Author)